Grand Prix Story Review - Could have used some more time in the pit

After my extremely positive experience with Game Dev Story, that I reviewed a little while back, I decided to revisit the world of phone gaming by picking up another of Kairosoft's "Story" games.
This time I bought "Grand Prix Story", which should be right up my alley, as I am both a fan of racing games and also enjoy watching races on TV.

Grand Prix Story puts you into the shoes of a racing team owner, letting you build cars, hire mechanics and racers, and generally lets you go about living out your Frank Williams fantasies (sans the tragic spine injuries).

Initially your choices will be limited. You'll only be able to build one type of car, a roadster, and select between two different drive train configurations, front wheel drive or rear wheel drive.
But in good "Story" game fashion, you will soon be presented with more options, getting to research new parts or vehicle types, or upgrading your existing vehicles or parts.
This means that you will soon be tweaking and tuning your cars so they perform optimally for the various races that you participate in.

How "Game Dev Story" ate 20+ hours of my life

Mobile phone games.

That label alone is enough to make most veteran gamers roll their eyes and think of Angry Bird copycat games.

Indeed, I must admit that until recently, I did not think there was really much in the way of games for phones that could capture my attention for any serious amount of time, excluding the ubiquitous Scrabble clones.

Enter "Game Dev Story" by Kairosoft.

Yeah, doesn't look like much, does it?

This game had me spending more than one evening on the couch, trying to run a successful game development company and leaving my consoles and PC sitting untouched and unloved.